To think sometimes you have no choice but to leave the house with a chickenpox child?

[StopTheSundayBlues]

What do you do if you have no friends or family to help out and you have more than one child?

Be confined to the house for over 2 weeks as one gets it after the other?

By no friends and family, I mean literally no one.

What if you need to go to the shop to feed your bloody children?

I know why chickenpox is so horrifically dangerous. But honestly, some people have no real choice but to leave the house, do they?

FFS some areas do not have delivery options at all - and there is a minimum spend, which not everyone can afford.

I find it interesting that the most aggressive posters are often the ones who won’t end up in hospital if they or their child catch chicken pox. I have been understanding of the need to go out despite the fear I may die but there are some really selfish people on here. I bet they’re the ones who let their poxy children play in playgrounds because they’re bored (cry me a river) rather than being a single, low income parent who food and medicine.

For the hard of thinking, no it’s not just MN. Go on any forum for people with complex health problems and you’ll find a plethora of posts about chicken pox.

We have limited delivery options, but I would do whatever I could to avoid going out. I’d try to get by with a combination of grocery delivery, which we just got, and amazon.

The issue here is that chicken pox is only a mild disease in healthy kids
That’s what I thought till my healthy two year old spent five days in hospital due to infected chicken poxs, large sections of his body were green , green, pussy and hot, they were even in his mouth.

There is someone I follow on insta who is currently storying about the fact she is taking her ds with chickenpox out for lunch, to the supermarket etc as if it’s funny!! I sort of understand doing it out of necessity but not just for fun. Maybe she doesn’t understand how serious it can be for people

Immunocompromised people take precautions by limiting their visits to super busy public areas. Mothers can also take precautions, but when taking children out to public areas . E.g if taking to a soft play areas open to the public at indoor malls, by informing other parents that their child has chickenpox and work around a time with parents for their child to also enter the play area for a specified time. At the end of the day kids with flu can equally be very dangerous for immunocompromised people. Kids are known to get colds and flu at least 9 times a year.

Zombie threaded but so @Dee2B I shouldn't food shop or eat out or go to a bar or work with the public then for the rest of my life?

It's not about being bored at home for all mothers. Some husbands work from home, and there can be many other reasons that people have. Wise to keep an open mind

Of course not . But I am sure everyone takes their precautions. Do you see many parents with kids taking their chickenpox kids out ? But sometimes there are valid reasons for going out . Not like it's an enjoyable time to take sick cranky kids out anyway

There really isn't a valid reason to take a contagious child out in a busy area. This was all discussed up thread if you read the whole thing

Of course you can go out. Chicken pox doesn't jump across a street or park to someone else. And there are actually very few genuinely immune-suppressed people. Yes you might be more suceptible but that is not the same as coming out of chemo treatment or similar.

The elderly probably all had it as kids and should now also be getting the shingles vaccine (although it seems heavily restricted to what age you are).

Anyway if people are that worried about it, a vaccine does exist.

A lot of the bad side effects that have been seen are down to giving ibuprofen.

OP I agree that a few people on MN are very silly about chicken pox. For most people it is mild. For an unfortunate few, it is not. But that can also apply to getting a cold. Some colds turn into nasty chest infections, for example.

If you are completely alone and have no food/nappies/medicine or need to take another child to school then it may be there’s no choice, although it’s not ideal and should be kept to a minimum. Taking them out socially when it’s not necessary is a bit shitty, not least of all for the poor child who maybe doesn’t feel good. Both mine had it in winter so we didn’t even get to sit in the garden

We were at A&E for several hours, got home, popped the DC in the bath and saw that DS2 had spots on him.... I shudder to think how many people he came into contact with. But I didn't know, and tbh he was even MORE contagious in the days before the spots came out.

You do what you can, but it's foolish to think that you can avoid coming into contact with chicken pox.

@havingtochangeusernameagain there are a fair whack of people that have cancer, blood diseases and various other things that make them immunocompromised/suppressed especially if they're on medication to suppress the immune system

I was a "normal" person until diagnosis and I get a lot of "well it's not cancer, it's fine" but it's really not. I see haematology every 12 weeks but still have to work FT to pay the bills

Hun you should continue reading what other people have said after your last message 😊

@ havingtochangeusernameagain . Thanks for sharing. That is a very informative message to people who become reactive and agressive seeing kids with chickenpox in public areas ( that is if they see one).

@ YesQueen. I do have empathy for you. And I genuinely feel that the varicella vaccination should be offered to adults and children to protect immunocompromised people - And I am aware that this suggestion opens the door of a big debate.

I do think people are really careless and will go out to the shops because they've run out of milk for their tea when they could just go without and use some tins from the cupboard for food. There may be a very rare case where someone has literally no food in, can't afford £40 shopping in one go for delivery, doesn't have a single person they could text or even a neighbour they could knock and ask. I do think those cases would be incredibly rare though and you wouldn't need to go out more than once.

People used to be so much less worried about this than they are now. We still had pox parties, where people got together when their DC had the pox to try and spread it around.

I suppose there were less immune compromised people back then, as transplants were less of a thing and cancer was far less survivable.

Probably good that we are more aware nowadays, as you wouldn't want to willingly endanger anyone's life. Although I know a person is contagious two days before the spots even break out, so how that works, I don't know.